Into the Fire

I finished a novel I planned to review for this Monday slot, but I couldn't do it. Why? It's simple really. There's not one good thing about the characters in this fairly long story. I'm not going to publicly name the author or title. I will tell you he's successful, secular, and has written many novels. I'm just going to mention things about the characters and ask your opinion on why anyone would desire to write, let alone read, a story about characters who have serious deficiencies such as addiction, psychopathic tendencies, who are convincing liars, perverts, murderers, etc. Using a worldly expression: not one of them had any truly redeeming qualities, albeit the heroine did manage to care about the children who were victims and the two men who were wrongfully incarcerated for their demise, one of whom suspiciously committed suicide after briefly being jailed!

The author knew how to tell a compelling story or I wouldn't have finished the book. It became a matter of determining if he was going to allow one good thing to happen after all the despicable drivel the characters projected and endured. I suspect he thought he engineered sympathy for the heroine, but he only managed to cryptically and effectively describe her gambling addiction and the severe harm it caused adding to the extreme ugliness of all the other characters and their vile behaviors. She managed to persevere through her addiction to solve the two murders separated by a number of years – this after losing her job as a detective while sleeping with her detective partner who was convicted of falsifying evidence and who she later discovered was a partner in the group who committed the crimes against these two female children (and many more) and set up those who took the fall for them. 

So no review today. Why would you want to write or read a novel with not one good thing in the story?  

Father, there is so much ugliness in this world. I don't know how you can be so patient with all of us. It breaks my heart daily to see the atrocities and to assess my own failures. Thank you for your unequaled mercy and grace. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.